The grants aim to promote and support the arts in the county
Stock Photo. Rudy and Peter Skitterians, Pixabay
Professional artists, communities and festivals in Offaly can now apply for a variety of arts grants for 2024.
Offaly County Council offer the grants to help support and promote the development of the arts across the county.
The grants include the Arts Acts Grants 2024, the Festival Arts Scheme, and the Professional Artists Support Award.
The Arts Acts Grants are community based and designed to support Offaly voluntary arts organisations, schools, drama and musical groups, town bands, voluntary community groups intending to host arts events, performances, or projects in Offaly in 2024.
The Festival Arts Scheme is designed for festivals taking place in Offaly in 2024, that are either dedicated arts festivals or have a strong professional arts element to the festival.
Meanwhile, the Professional Artist Support Award offers a support scheme for professional artists in developing their arts practice over a number of categories.
The grant schemes fund many great projects every year. For example, in 2023 the Arts Acts funded a variety of projects including the transition year musical of ‘Disco Inferno’ by Colaiste Naomh Cormac, a series of enabling art sessions for clients of Dochas Offaly Cancer Support Group, encaustic workshops with Highstreet Belmont active retirement group, portraits in digital and pencil with the Irish Wheelchair Association, and funding toward the recently published poetry collection Journeys by Wordsmiths of Tullamore.
Festivals funded under the Festival Arts award scheme in 2023 included Birr Festival of Music, Birr Vintage Week and Arts Festival, OFFline Film Festival, Shakefest, Tullamore International Summer Organ Series and Tullamore Trad Fest.
The professional artist support award funded a range of professional artists across the county in support of their practice, with the aim of encouraging professional artists to live and work in the county.
All the funding schemes are highly competitive, so applicants are encouraged to ensure the proposed projects are both ambitious and innovative.
The deadline for the Arts Act Grant and Professional Artist applications is January 22 2024 at 3pm.
If you are applying for the Festival Arts Scheme you have a little longer to apply, with applications closing on February 19 2024 also at 3pm.
